Myanmar to hold fresh talks with Kachin rebels

YANGON: Myanmar will hold another round of talks with Kachin rebels today in a bid to end a conflict raging in the country’s far north, a federation of ethnic minority groups said.

The two sides will attend an “emergency meeting” in the Chinese border town of Ruili to seek a breakthrough in the bloody conflict, Khun Okker, a spokesman for the United Nationalities Federal Council, said yesterday.

“China arranged it,” he said. “They (China) might want to give their views to both the KIA (Kachin Independence Army) and the Myanmar government.”

But he said the rebels “have not had much time to prepare” and the problem was unlikely to be resolved without political dialogue at meetings in the future.